Medical tourism from Afghanistan to Uzbekistan surged more than 15-fold in 2025, even as the overall number of foreign patients in the country declined.

Some 80,600 foreign patients received medical treatment in Uzbekistan between January and November 2025. This figure is 18.6 per cent lower than during the same period in 2024, The Caspian Post reports via Uzbek media.

Uzbekistan’s largest source of medical tourists remained Tajikistan, with 55,800 patients, although this flow dropped by 26 per cent year on year. Kyrgyzstan ranked second with 14,300 patients, followed by Kazakhstan with 7,600, marking a 33 per cent decline.

Smaller but notable changes were also recorded. The number of patients from Russia rose slightly to 1,800 (+4.2 per cent), while arrivals from Turkmenistan fell almost fourfold to 219. Türkiye, meanwhile, increased its medical tourism flow by 20 per cent, reaching 47 patients.

Despite the dip in medical tourism overall, Uzbekistan recorded strong growth in general travel. Over the first 11 months of 2025, the country welcomed 10.7 million foreign visitors, up 47.4 per cent compared to the previous year. The increase was driven mainly by neighboring countries, with particularly sharp growth in arrivals from Afghanistan and China.